Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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We have improved neighborhood livability and Town and Gown relations. Healthy neighborhoods are important to our way of life as a city. Neighborhood Services staff and volunteers do important work. There are new farmers markets spreading throughout the city and gardening efforts underway everywhere. There are emergency preparedness programs. There’s keen interest in food security and food resilience. Neighborhood roads, bike access, bike racks and safe routes to school are improving. Close to campus, neighborhoods and the University are working together to maintain neighbor- hood character, to reduce student housing impacts, and to ensure that our older Eugene neighborhoods survive and thrive well into the future. Parks are being adopted and new water features invite kids to play. Working hand in hand with our neighborhoods ensures a good future for Eugene. Transportation gains have been made. I’ve told you about the amazing number of road repairs that have been completed. That story is incomplete without telling you that there’s still a substantial backlog. It is likely we’ll be asking you to support another road bond in the future. We’ve gone about this work in the right way, informing the public of the list of roads to be fixed and putting in place a community oversight committee to monitor that the dollars are spent the way they were intended. With construction costs down we’ve been able to add additional roads to the list for repair. Our public works department has gotten an amazing amount of work done but it’s your votes that made it possible. Lane Transit District has completed two very successful segments of our bus rapid transit system. The third segment has been going through a required federal environmental analysis and we are beginning to assess, with Springfield, a fourth segment linking Lane Community College. With 200 new housing units and the new downtown LCC Green Learning Center, this connection would just seem to make good sense. Both communities benefit from a robust transit system. State transportation dollars are scarce and, thus, much attention is being paid to preservation, connectivity and multi-modal capacity. Our city bike and pedestrian plan envisions making it easier for people to walk and cycle. There’s strong interest in developing bike lanes that are completely separated from traffic so that all riders can feel safer moving around the community. In Envision Eugene, transportation corridors are planned that support mixed-use development so that people th travel less and carbon emissions can be reduced. Just this week we’ve seen plans emerging along West 11 for such development in the Rexius mixed-use proposal. The Department of Land Conservation and Development's Citizen Involvement Advisory Committee (CIAC) recently awarded the Envision Eugene planning process the STAR Award, the state's highest honor for citizen involvement in land use. Our city planners have led this amazing effort. Our climate and energy plan responds to peak oil, finite resources, and climate change. It came about as a result of community work and its implementation requires a lot of action by each and every one of us. This plan, as well as our staff lead, Matt McRae, were recognized at both the state and national levels. All our transportation/land use-planning documents are being updated to reflect our community goals and the concrete steps we need to achieve them. These include accessible and attractive transportation choices that reduce carbon emissions, set us on the path to the future, and continue to keep our road infrastructure safe and efficient for all modes to move people and goods. Our Sustainability Commission has been active MINUTES—State of the City January 5, 2012 Page 5